fandomhigh | Drama, Monday, Period 2 [6/22]

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Drama, Monday, Period 2 [6/22]

"Today is our last class. I've very much enjoyed our time here, so while, as I said, I wanted all of you to do your presentations today-- and that is not canceled--" Sophie smiled. "You may do them on whatevery you wish. Why you should be President. Your Oscar acceptance speech for Best Actor, Actress, or F/X Coordinator. Your reasons on why we should all convert to Jainism. A monologue from Shakespeare's Amleth. Have at it!"

"And please have some of the muffins and cookies here. I hope to see some of you in the class I hope to be teaching next semester. And of course, those of you who are in the play-- I'll see you tomorrow."

[OCD ~~on its way~~ up!]

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Or attempt it.

Raven had picked a classical monologue from Christopher Marlowe's "Dido Queen of Carthage":

Speaks not Æneas like a conqueror?
O blessed tempests that did drive him in!
O happy sand that made him run aground!
Henceforth you shall be our Carthage gods.
Ay, but it may be, he will leave my love,
And seek a foreign land call'd Italy:
O that I had a charm to keep the winds
Within the closure of a golden ball;
Or that the Tyrrhene sea were in mine arms,
That he might suffer shipwreck on my breast,
As oft as he attempts to hoist up sail!
I must prevent him; wishing will not serve.--
Go bid my nurse take young Ascanius,
And bear him in the country to her house;
Æneas will not go without his son;
Yet, lest he should, for I am full of fear,
Bring me his oars, his tackling, and his sails.
What if I sink his ships? O, he will frown!
Better he frown than I should die of grief.
I cannot see him frown; it may not be:
Armies of foes resolv'd to win this town,
Or impious traitors vow'd to have my life,
Affright me not; only Æneas frown
Is that which terrifies poor Dido's heart:
Not bloody spears, appearing in the air,
Presage the downfall of my empery,
Nor blazing comets threaten Dido's death;
It is Æneas' frown that ends my days.
If he forsake me not, I never die;
For in his looks I see eternity,
And he'll make me immortal with a kiss.

It was...not bad. Not amazing by any stretch; she reigned in the emotion, but at least she didn't do it in monotone.

"Thank you, Rachel. Do you mind me asking, why you picked that monologue?" Sophie asked, pleased with the girl's progress, and smiling.

"I found it interesting that such a powerful woman allowed herself to be destroyed by love," Raven said. No personal investment there, not at all.

"Some things about love are hard to deny, though." Sophie thought of Nate. "Including how it can change you past bearing... Compared to how shy you were when you started this class, I think you've progressed rather well, don't you?"

"But for some duty means they cannot love, and this passage illustrates why," Raven said. "And...yes, I am pleased with my progression, but I know I will never be a great actress. It requires more passion than I may give."

"Never is a long time, Rachel," Sophie said, watching the girl thoughtfully. "And there is no 'can not', I think, with love. Merely choices as to how far one allows it to go, and in what direction. Love of her people might have saved Dido when love of Aeneas destroyed her."

And all of this made her think of Nate again, the plan to help him that had gone so badly, how much he'd lost and how far he'd let himself disintegrate in the aftermath.

"Anything great requires passion." She smiled at Rachel. "But it doesn't have to happen all at once. And I've been very pleased with what you've shown us this semester."

Re: ACT!

trigons_child - 2009-06-22 18:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: ACT!

magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com - 2009-06-22 19:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: ACT!

trigons_child - 2009-06-22 19:03 (UTC) - Expand

Re: ACT!

magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com - 2009-06-22 19:26 (UTC) - Expand

Re: ACT!

trigons_child - 2009-06-22 19:51 (UTC) - Expand

Emma was the very image of calm as she took the floor and started her piece from Anouilh's Antigone.

"The people gathered here are about to act the story of Antigone. The one who's going to play the lead is the thin girl sitting there silent," she began, pointing at one of her classmates. "Staring in front of her. Thinking. She's thinking that soon she's going to be Antigone. That she'll stop being the thin dark girl whose family didn't take her seriously, and rise up alone against everyone. Against Creon, her uncle...the king. She's thinking that she's going to die...though she's still young, and like everyone else would have preferred to live."

"But there's nothing to be done," Emma continued with a shrug. "Her name is Antigone, and she's going to have to play her part right through to the very end."

She continued on, moving through the room and randomly highlighting her classmates for the various roles, as if she were the hostess at a very exclusive cocktail party. "...They are the agents - eternally complacent - of justice. For the time being the justice they serve is the justice of Creon...until the day comes when Thebes designates Creon's successor, and and they are ordered to arrest Creon himself."

"And now that you know them all they can act out their story."

Emma took her bow with a smug smile before returning to her seat. She'd memorized it perfectly, and her delivery had been clean and crisp, with the mildly condescending attitude of superiority that the Chorus seemed to radiate. You're all morons, he seemed to say, and Emma rather agreed.

Well, well. A student who knew their own character well enough to pick a very good part for themselves. "Was it the tragedy, or the Chorus's place outside of it that appealed to you, Miss Frost?" Sophie asked, curious.

"Both," Emma admitted bluntly. "I thought about one of Creon's pieces originally, since he has some of the more evocative imagery without Antigone's hysteria, but being the omniscient narrator had a rather irresistible appeal."

"One of the first things an actor has to do is know what parts work for them, what the easiest things for them to play would be. What 'type' they are. I can only applaud your ability to cast yourself here, as both the cynic and the sophisticate," Sophie said with amusement. "Easy to become typecast of course, if one never pushes the limits, but.... somehow I don't see you doing that." Someone as sharp as Emma would not suffer any perceptions that would limit her abilities, Sophie felt.

"If I'm continually typecast as 'fabulous', I don't think I'd mind, but that's actually why I picked a monologue that was written for a male actor," Emma replied. "I like shaking things up."

Re: ACT!

magdaofslovenia.livejournal.com - 2009-06-22 22:54 (UTC) - Expand

Sam wasn't sure why he was so nervous, but he had to take a few deep breaths before performing his monologue. He'd practiced it enough times that once he got started, it all sort of clicked, and he felt a lot better about how he'd done when it was all over.

"Very heart-felt job, Sam," Sophie said in approval. "Why this piece? Any particular reason?"

"Well, I wanted to pick something I was familiar with, and I've read this play a bunch of times," Sam said. "I figured it would be better to pick a monologue where I understood the whole story behind it."

"A good choice." Sophie gave him a pleased smile. "You seem to be more comfortable on stage than you were when we started. I'm glad to have had you here in my class."

Sam smiled softly. "I'm glad to have been here. Thanks."

"I'm very proud," Eric began, and then hesitated, licked his lips; he rested his hands at the ~~modded, oh noes~~ podium. "I'm grateful to have won for the school, but there was another article that was to have been included in the school magazine. It was, ah, censored because it was about a young man who... just happens to be gay.

"I wrote that article." Eric's hands flexed, gripped a little tighter on the podium. "I wish you could have read it," he continued, his voice tight with emotion, "so that you could understand.

"I'm tired of feeling sad and scared. I want to have friends who like me for who I am. I want to be part of a family who loves me for who I am, and not who I pretend to be to keep their love!"

Eric stepped away from the podium, stepped forward; he advanced on the class. "Have you any idea?" he asked them, anger, fear, and sadness mixed on his face. "God, there must be more of you feel like this, like I do, just... too frightened to speak out!" He looked over his gathered classmates, waited, one beat, two, three. "Thanks for proving my point," he said, laughing just a little, self-deprecatingly.

"I'm sorry, Mom, Dad," Eric said, shaking his head. "But you can bet your life you're not the only parents here with a gay son.

"It's only love," he finished. "What's everyone so scared of?"

[Monologue from Get Real (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162973/); any mistakes mine, as I don't have the movie handy to check it against and I haven't actually performed the monologue in, uh, five years.]

"Very nicely done," Sophie said in appreciation. "Anything you want to share about your choice of monologue?"

Eric smiled softly. "It's from a movie," he admitted, "not a play, but I'm really fond of it. And the monologue means a lot to me; it's the first gay movie I ever saw."

"Ahh." Sophie nodded. "A good choice, then, since you have such a strong connection with the script. And you don't have to fake any of the levels of emotion." She smiled gently at Eric. "Wonderfully done. And I look forward to being in the play with you this coming term."

Gabrielle had ended up going with something she hadn't written herself for this after all, go figure, but she liked to think she had a good amount of personal experience with the subject material.

(So she hadn't actually been in Prometheus's general vicinity at the time. Hush.)

Painful are these things to me e’en to speak:
Painful is silence; everywhere is woe.
For when the high Gods fell on mood of wrath
And hot debate of mutual strife was stirred,
Some wishing to hurl Cronos from his throne,
That Zeus, forsooth, might reign; while others strove,
Eager that Zeus might never rule the Gods:
Then I, full strongly seeking to persuade
The Titans, yea, the sons of Heaven and Earth,
Failed of my purpose. Scorning subtle arts,
With counsels violent, they thought that they
By force would gain full easy mastery.
But then not once or twice my mother Themis
And earth, one form though bearing many names,
Had prophesied the future, how ’twould run,
That not by strength nor yet by violence,
But guile, should those who prospered gain the day.
And when in my words I this counsel gave,
They deigned not e’en to glance at it at all.
And then of all that offered, it seemed best
To join my mother, and of mine own will,
Not against His will, take my side with Zeus,
And by my counsels, mine, the dark deep pit
Of Tartaros the ancient Cronos holds,
Himself and his allies. Thus profiting
By me, the mighty ruler of the Gods
Repays me with these evil penalties:
For somehow this disease in sovereignty
Inheres, of never trusting to one’s friends.
And since ye ask me under what pretence
He thus maltreats me, I will show it you:
For soon as He upon His father’s throne
Had sat secure, forthwith to divers Gods
He divers gifts distributed, and His realm
Began to order. But of mortal men
He took no heed, but purposed utterly
To crush their race and plant another new;
And, I excepted, none dared cross His will;
But I did dare, and mortal men I freed
From passing on to Hades thunder-stricken;
And therefore am I bound beneath these woes,
Dreadful to suffer, pitiable to see:
And I, who in my pity thought of men
More than myself, have not been worthy deemed
To gain like favour, but all ruthlessly
I thus am chained, foul shame this sight to Zeus.

Her delivery of the words seemed more casual than one might think classical phrasing ought to be delivered, but then, to her, it was ridiculously formal language anyway.

[[From Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound (http://www.bartleby.com/8/4/1.html), which, yes, probably clashes horribly chronologically with everything else in Gabrielle's world. That's how the Xenaverse rolls.]]

The contradiction in the words and the delivery still... worked, oddly. "Gabrielle. That's a very interesting choice. And one I didn't expect. What inspired it?"

"Mostly I wanted to see how it would sound," Gabrielle admitted. "Prometheus didn't strike me as that much of a speech-maker."

"More of a man of actions, than of words?" Sophie offered, not catching the hint there. "Perhaps. What does it mean to you, personally?" ALthough it seemed that Gabrielle was conveying something intrinsic about her take on the Greek gods; but Sophie didn't want to assume too much.

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